Given the proliferation in recent years of ufo/paranormal/dreamtime imagery in the media (VW's "Reverse Engineered From UFO's" ad comes glaringly to mind), do you feel that this is actually changing or affecting the phenomenon itself? Is the mass-media consciousness causing the UFO phenomenon to change the way it interfaces with us?
 
 

 So, "are we being prepared?" Hell yes! The entirety of the human collective is preparing itself for the inevitable:  overt contact with the probable multitudes of non-human intelligences / consciousnesses existant within the Universe. It is the urge-to-destiny of every lifeform to go beyond the confines of its original evolutionary environs and become a part of the galactic evolutionary process. It is this inevitability for which the human collective unconscious (and its governing hierarchies of morphic consciousnesses: local, national, global) is preparing itself. It does this through our imaginal experiencing of the alien other, and all aspects of our confrontations with the unknown.

The ufo phenomenon exists in a synergistic cybernetic interface with humanity. Whatever the true nature of UFOs, they interact with us within several different milieus, all of which are influenced by the media and culture. This media and culture in turn feeds back into the phenonomena in a continuous cycle.

In a recent discussion on the value of regressive hypnosis (see UFO UpDates here http://www.ufomind.com/ufo/updates/1999/apr/m16-007.shtml ) in ufo close encounter/abduction cases Jenny Randles said:
 
 

"The evidence of psychology - at least as I read it - is at best split and I find biased against hypnosis being used as a way to uncover even say a 75% truth level.

So - if we accept that 25% of all abduction testimony is fantasy then which bits do we use to construct our ongoing theories and worldviews? Especially as these feed back into the collective unconscious and inevitably create false data in the next generation of abductees?

Even if some true memory is emerging - and I suspect it is, by the way - the constant over use of hypnosis is simply diluting the level of truth in the cases that emerge by adding in more and more fantasy. By now I suspect the data emerging is so contaminated that it is dangerous to make any real assumptions from it."

In this way the very nature of accessing the human unconscious via hypnosis muddies the data pool of UFO encounters. This example is focused on hypnosis as the mechanism of dilution but human waking consciousness could be arguably as diluting when confronting an unknown. Time and again we see how the shocking nature of humanity's confrontations with the denizens of the dark nights of the unfathomable abyss throws up our unconscious enculturated ideas about what these denizens are like. For the human mind will utilize any and all imagery at its disposal to fill in the blanks of the incongruous and anomalous sense patterns it must organize from moment to moment.

Dr. Greg Little has spoken to the probability that the 80-90% IFO rate among ufo reports is in fact the main instigator of the cultural and media propogated UFO myth, ie-the haystack of IFOs are the stories most people hear told about UFOs. For as Vallee has quantified, the stranger the encounter the less likely it is to be reported widely. Thus abduction researchers who confine their studies to cases with a specific structure or descriptive element help to further tune in the specific morphic field that is that type of experiencing of the phenomena and any attendant entities.

Several theories have been put forth over the years which implicate human consciousness in the effecting of quantum physical processes. Human observation can influence the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanical systems such that a true mind/matter interface exists. The evidence for this seems nearly incontravertible. (See my review of OTHERWORLD REALITY conference on the ontological status of imaginal consciousness)

This possibility has led researchers like Thomas Bearden to speculate on and attempt to quantify the physics of paranormal manifestations as a sort of tuning in of different possible quantum potential realities. In his physics, the research of Dean Radin and the ideas of Carl Jung we see the possibility of the human collective unconscious manifesting consensus reality according to some sort of "critical mass/hundredth monkey/ resonance" hypothesis. There is evidence that the focusing of human consciousness can increase the ingression of novelty through a decrease in the randomness of random number generators. This may also be atenuated by the local morphological terrain. In other words, different geographic vectors and social/cultural "boundaries" may actually effect the local psychic environment to predispose experiencers towards certain types of paranormal phenomena.

For example, all premodern cultures have myths of contact with non-human beings (gods, angels, demons, ancestors, etc.) but with the rise of Modern Western communications we see the spread of the post modern experiencing of these phenomena in the form of UFO/ET encounters. All types of encounters are still possible and still experienced around the world. However, even before the image of the big-headed big-blackeyed grey alien was spread via western physical communications media the image started spreading through the collective unconscious.

All this means is that people in say, a Hispanic Catholic community, are perhaps equally likely nowadays to encounter the Virgin Mary, as they might be to meet space aliens. Whereas in pre modern era encounters they may have been much more likely to encounter something which would fit into their pre-existing mythos. Or, perhaps a rational aetheistic westerner, encountering an unknown luminous phenomena in an area of indigenous-religious importance would have a classic experience explicated within the prevailing geographic arena's mythos/paradigm. The variability of psychic factors is still little understood but there do seem to be these "hundredth monkey / critical mass" issues to contend with.

If any of this is possible then we certainly have a quagmire on our hands. For if the fantastic fictions of our television and print media can feedback upon and influence our images and ideas of the unknown then we will continue to have a harder and harder time of sorting the wheat from the chaff of non-human intelligences communicating thru the ufo encounter.

Perhaps even more important, though, are the implications of the media's continued use of increasingly dreamtime like (and thus paranormal) imagery. The coincidental rise of this trend in the shadow of the internet and all it portends is no mere coincidence. Humanity is preparing the evolutionary ladder for the rise of human consciousness out of and away from the confines of its own physical shackles. This is a dangerous trend, for in this evolution to some other organism we see our own probable extinction.

[Or worse, our (continued?) use as cattle towards the sustenance of some ecology of which we are not even aware. See Mr. Baggins' current Researcher Dialogue.]

It is these very issues which are being raised by the latest batch of cinematic consumerism in films like 12 Monkeys, The Truman Show, Dark City, The Matrix, The Eleventh Floor, Xistenz, etc. For they at once open our minds to the possibilities of limitless mind, virtual reality,  nanotech, artificial intelligence and all their attendant ethical issues while often degenerating into simple guns and kung-fu action movies. The over arching theme here is "Question Reality"; a refrain from the sixties and seventies which has found a renewed vigor in these post Phil Dickian times.

As one of the announcers of the email audio zine EarthMail@GroundZero said, "Get ready, because very soon you will be called upon to decide what is real and what isn't." Choose your reality wisely, or it just might come back to haunt you.

(For more on this tack, please visit my forthcoming review of Jacques Vallee's OTHERWORLD REALITY conference paper to be featured within the ELFIS Mind Kontrol Corner very soon)